1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a recording apparatus that performs recording onto a medium.
2. Related Art
Some recording apparatuses, typical examples of which are printers, may include a recording unit and a belt conveyor device. The recording unit performs recording onto a sheet of paper, which is an example of a medium. The belt conveyor device has a conveyor belt that adheres the sheet thereto and transports the sheet to a recording region in which the recording unit performs recording. One type of such recording apparatuses includes a wiping device (for example, a cleaning blade, etc.) that is in contact with the surface of the conveyor belt and wipes the surface in order to clean debris, such as ink and toner, attached to the surface of the conveyor belt that supports the sheet (for example, JP-A-2005-300916).
Ink, toner, and paper debris containing ink and toner, which are attached to the tip of the wiping device, may coagulate if a recording apparatus having the wiping device is not used for a long time. Debris on the surface of the conveyor belt are normally wiped or scraped off by the wiping device. However, if the belt conveyor device starts moving while a coagulation body made of coagulated ink, toner, or the like adheres firmly to the conveyor belt near the tip of the wiping device, the coagulation body may pass the wiping device without being removed. The coagulation body does not simply pass the wiping device but may push against the wiping device and cause the orientation of the wiping device to change. This may cause the wiping device to be unable to perform wiping appropriately.
To address this problem, JP-A-2005-300916 discloses a configuration in which the belt conveyor device starts rotating the conveyor belt in the sheet transport direction (hereinafter referred to as “normal direction”) after the belt conveyor device rotates the belt a predetermined distance in the reverse direction, which is opposite to the normal direction. The coagulation body attached to the tip of the wiping device is thereby detached from the tip. Movement of the belt is subsequently started. The coagulation body is brought into contact with the wiping device with momentum. Thus, the coagulation body can be wiped off by the wiping device.
JP-A-2016-159605 discloses that in order to facilitate maintenance of the belt conveyor device, the belt conveyor device (i.e., the transport unit 50 according to JP-A-2016-159605) is formed so as to move between a first position at which the recording unit performs recording and a second position at which the belt conveyor device is more distant than the first position from the recording unit.
In the transport unit 50, described in JP-A-2016-159605, which moves between the first position and the second position, when the transport unit 50 moves from the second position to the first position, the conveyor belt 21 may be caused to rotate unintentionally in conjunction with the movement of the transport unit 50, despite the conveyor belt 21 not being driven by a drive source. Moreover, in the case that the wiping device is disposed in the transport unit 50, if the conveyor belt stops rotating at the second position during maintenance, etc., and if the stop period is long, the coagulation body may adhere to the tip of the wiping device. When the conveyor belt 21 is caused to move in conjunction with the movement of the transport unit 50 from the second position to the first position, there may be a problem where the coagulation body passes the wiping device and causes a change in the orientation of the wiping device is to occur.